To be announced

Anyone reading this who is familiar with my food posts knows that I don't post recipes. I relate the narrative of how I cooked a thing. Part of this is because I don't really use recipes that often. I will when I'm just learning how to make a particular food, and then I improvise from there. Part of that is because of the way I learned to cook - at an early age, from experienced cooks, who told me the story of how something is made while we were making it. So when I write about something I cooked, I'm more interested in telling its story and handing the knowledge over that way.

A recipe is a way to hand down a story of how to make a thing. But the structure of many recipes assumes a previous skill in not just cooking, but reading recipes - specifically, reading what the recipe -doesn't tell you.- For a person who doesn't cook, the unspoken assumptions of recipes can mean disaster, ruined dinners, and yet another entrant into the story of why cooking sucks.

I found a recipe. I haven't actually tried this recipe, but this one looks pretty tasty. I got it from In Jennie's Kitchen, a blog i've never visited before, and it's a recipe for butternut squash soup. You can see the original page here. But for the purposes of this post, i'm just going to copy the recipe and explain how it's read.

Velvety Butternut Squash Soup
Serves 4

The recipe title, and the anticipated serving size. My first question is serves 4 what? Does this recipe serve four as a starting course, or is it sized generously enough to be a lunch entree? I wish I knew before meal planning, but I'm going to guess that it makes around one liter of soup, probably less. But it honestly depends on the size of your squash.

This soup is so remarkably smooth, you’ll be tempted to call it creamy butternut squash soup—except there’s not a spot of cream. Start by roasting the squash in a 400ºF oven, until it’s nice and tender, about 30 minutes (split lengthwise and scoop out the seeds first). Then the your blender does the magic of whipping the soup into a light and airy puree.

A bit of description for the soup, but look wary: There's a few assumptions in the leading description. It's remarkably smooth and by the way you need an already roasted squash. That you already know how to make. Oh and also by the way the recipe calls for a stand blender rather than a stick blender. And that's before you even hit the ingredient list. So, dear reader:

Do you know how to roast a squash? I do. 30 minutes in a 400F oven is the barest description. You'd probably need to find more explicit instructions than that. Yes, you can just cook the squash in the microwave. Lots of people do. I think that there's a difference in flavor and i prefer the oven roasted squash, but honestly what you need here is cooked squash, and that's all.

Do you also have a knife that can handle slicing a raw squash in half, lengthwise? I finally do. It cost $97 CDN before taxes. I hesitate to tell a new cook they need to spend a hundred bucks on a knife, but a dull knife and a raw squash will raise your perspiration and your ire. Some supermarkets will sell squash halves already cut and cleaned of seeds, so that might be an option.

Do you have a stand blender? I do. See the above hesitation about recommending new cooks lay out a lot of money for an activity they're not sure they're going to enjoy. So if you don't have a stand blender, don't run out and buy one because you've never made soup before. Your stick blender will work just fine. In fact, I'd ignore that bit about the stand blender in the recipe anyway and just use a stick. Don't have a stick blender, either? How about an electric mixer? you can smooth out cooked squash and broth with that, it'll just have a texture, and that's fine.

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 leeks, white parts only, thinly sliced
1 small butternut squash, roasted, flesh scooped out
2 cups vegetable stock
1/4 mixed toasted sweetened coconut and almonds
1 teaspoon chopped cilantro

This is your list of ingredients. We've already gone over the by the way you need a roasted squash before you can start this recipe assumption. You do of course want to make sure you have all of these things on hand in sufficient quantity before you can proceed.

But don't move on just yet. Look at 2 leeks, white parts only, thinly sliced. fresh leeks often have a lot of dirt in them. So if you were to nod your head and go on to the instructions and "Heat butter and oil in a 2 quart pot over medium heat" and then pull those two leeks out of the fridge, the butter and oil would scorch before you'd gotten the leeks cleaned and sliced.

Here's a concept that will save you a lot of trouble and frustration in the cooking process, though it's likely to create more dishes for you to clean: Mise en Place. Yes, it's French. It means "to put in place" or something similar. Some cooks just don't do this, some argue against it, but when you're a new cook or if you're learning a new technique, Mise en Place really helps.

So. take a liquid measuring cup, and measure out two cups of vegetable stock (i recommend low sodium pre-made. You can make your own stock. It may not be something you want to fuss with at the moment.) take a smaller portion dish and measure out a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil in it. chop (ha!) some cilantro (bah! just cut the leaves with scissors, they don't have to be teeny) and set it in a little dish. scoop out all that cooked squash, maybe even dice it a little, and set it in a bowl or on a plate. take out those leeks, wash the leeks, slice the leeks up really fine, cuss at all the grit, dump the thinly sliced leeks in a colander and rinse (you're going to see a lot of grit on fresh spinach too. It's just how it is.) then shake the excess water, drop the leeks on a tea towel and pat them down a touch. measure your coconut and your almonds - there's a typo in the original recipe, but I'm betting it's a quarter cup each coconut and almond.

Now set out the pot you're going to cook the soup in. If you read ahead you know it should hold at least 2 quarts. If you're not sure, simply measure two quarts of water and see if it fits in the pot. if it's too small, dry the pot with a teatowel and put it back, grab the bigger one, and try fitting two quarts of water in that. Repeat until you find a pot that will hold at least two quarts of water, then dry that one and put it on the stove. Now set out a frying pan. Put out a couple of wooden spoons. Have your stand blender or your stick blender or your electric mixer ready to go.

Okay, -now- you can cook. Let's go on to the instructions.

Heat butter and oil in a 2 quart pot over medium heat. Add leeks and saute until soften and fragrant. Add roasted butternut squash and stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes. Pour contents of pot into the glass bowl of a blender and puree until smooth, about 2 minutes. Divide among four bowl and garnish with toasted and almond mixture and a sprinkle of cilantro.

Lots of assumptions here. Heat butter and oil in a 2 quart pot over medium heat. In this case you can simply put the butter and oil in a cold pot and then turn the heat on, it won't harm anything unless you have the heat on too high to start. but "medium heat" varies from stove to stove, and we're working with olive oil, which has a very low smoke point compared to other oils. So let's do the sizzle test:

1. heat the dry pot on medium heat. give it a minute to heat up.
2. pour yourself a glass of water. wet your fingers, and flick the pot. what does the water do?

If it evaporates near instantly, it's too hot. Turn the heat down and wait a few minutes before trying again.
If the water kind of becomes little balls that roll around for a second before evaporating, that's a good heat if you were just heating butter or canola oil and sauteeing in that, but that's not what we're doing, so turn the heat down and wait a few minutes before trying again.
If the water spreads and boils with big bubbles but takes a couple of seconds to evaporate, that's about right.

Add the butter and oil. Pick up the pot and tilt it around, covering the bottom, but the important part is to add the leeks the moment the butter melts. You'll be moving the leeks around with a wooden spoon, and your'e watching for the leeks to become soft and to start releasing their smell. you're not trying to brown the leeks, but it won't be ruined if you do wind up browning them a bit. they'll look a little translucent when they're ready.

now add the squash. you'll get a good sizzle when they go in. Stir the squash around a bit, mixing it with the leeks. Steam should be rising from the pot. you're not looking to brown the squash, you're getting it slightly warmed and taking the leeks up into the squash mixture so they don't brown either.

Once you get that mixed, pour in all the vegetable stock. keep an eye on things, but this is a good time to wash your slicing knife, your cutting board, the dishes that held the squash and the butter oil, and your measuring cups, but keep glancing at the pot. when you see the stock boiling, turn the heat down to low, drop a lid on it, and set the stove timer for 20 minutes. this is more than enough time to get your prep dishes washed, so do that.

Once you're fidgeting because the timer's not done but you've got nothing left to do, let's work on the other assumption in the recipe directions: that you know that the only way you're going to get toasted coconut and almonds is if YOU toast them. You see what recipes leave out?

Heat the frying pan. Use the sizzle test, and when the water rolls, drop your coconut and your almonds in the dry pan and stir constantly with the other wooden spoon. (yep, that's why I said two.) stir constantly. everything is always moving. you're smelling the coconut and almonds and watching them stubbornly not brown and then all of a sudden WHAM it happens all at once. scrape the hot stuff onto the dish you'd placed the coconut and almond in before, and set the fry pan on a cold element while the other element cools.

When the timer goes off it's time to puree the soup using whatever instrument of liquefication you may have. hopefully you don't have too much stock and not enough squash. if your squash soup is just too thick, you can thin it by adding a splash of stock, but too thin is just sad. you want it smooth, and it doesn't really matter what instrument of liquefication you use to achieve this.

Once it's smooth it's ready to serve. Pour into a bowl, drop a pinch of fresh cilantro on top, add a spoonful of coconut and almond to the center.

One thing about this recipe: In my opinion the absence of any seasoning is very surprising. I would not add salt if I were using premade vegetable stock, but I would add pepper. I'd probably also add paprika or thyme.

The other thing about this recipe: to be completely honest I'd never roast a squash for the express purpose of making soup out of it. I probably roasted a squash and had some as a side for a previous meal and then used the leftover squash to make this soup. but for learning purposes this recipe stands as a perfectly servicable butternut squash soup recipe.

One last thing about this recipe: if I were feeding vegans i'd skip the butter and olive oil and just use coconut oil for sauteeing them leeks. I keep coconut oil in the house all the time, and my vegetable stock is made with vegetables, herbs, and water. the only thing that keeps this recipe from being vegan is the butter.

I'm having a bit of a dietary temper tantrum at the moment.

While i'm still sticking to gluten-free, my body is craving carbs. since I just went through two days of fever, I said what the hell and made some rice pasta. once it was done I buttered it and dropped it in a bowl, then added another slice of butter to the pan, then added a good healthy teaspoon of minced garlic, and let the garlic cook just a tiny bit in that. once it smelled perfect, I added a teaspoon of rice flour, blended that in, and took it off the heat, to line the bottom of the pan with whipping cream. a good stir, add some pepper, back on the heat - oh very thick, more cream. there, better.

then the small mound of Parmesan cheese I grated, along with just a little whisper of nutmeg, because I seemed to recall nutmeg in such a sauce. stirred, it melted, I dumped the pasta back in, and stirred, and then back in the bowl.

salt to taste. Eat, and enjoy enormously.

low carb, I would enjoy this over some baked fish. salmon, probably. with asparaguses. nummy. thinking about it I think I would add some sundried tomatoes, minced fine from being packed in oil to this sauce, and then some capers to go with the salmon. ooh, that's sounding pretty good. but I only have smoked salmon at the moment. oh cry me a river, right?

1. It's good to plan these things.

I really think I hit success because I outlined what I wanted beforehand, created a structure, and filled in the gaps. I knew what to expect, what I needed, what to buy. because I looked at cooking times I have things timed very well, too.

2. Planning a holiday meal without mushrooms is FOOLISH.

Squash took a holiday, mushrooms stepped up to help my quinoa experiment along. Really. I planned a meal with no mushrooms. LoL.

3. Eggnog is incredibly easy to make and I should have done it a long time ago.

I took two fresh eggs and cracked them into my eggnog serving jug. I cut up about half an inch of vanilla bean into fine flakes. I whirred this with my stick blender until it was frothy. I added two tablespoons of brown sugar, and whirred while i slowly poured in a cup and a half of fresh whole milk. Whirr, Whirr. then i grated a nutmeg until I had enough that I could cover a nickel with it, in it went, quick whirr to blend.

I put it in the fridge for three hours to chill.

I was then astounded at how AMAZING IT IS.

4. Quinoa is a keeper.

I'd never tasted Quinoa before, and what better day than Christmas to test out a completely untried recipe? I'll need a mesh strainer to continue cooking this as you need to rinse the quinoa before you cook it. it cooks up just like rice - 1 part quinoa to 2 parts liquid, bring to boil and then simmer covered until liquid is absorbed.

while it's coming to a boil, halve a small handful of fresh cranberries, and rinse them to banish the seeds. leave the cranberries in a dish covered in maple syrup. well, not completely covered, you know what I mean. get some maple syrup in there. now halve some mushrooms. I used white and crimini. leave that until the quinoa is nearly done. when it is nearly done, melt butter in your sautee pan. BUTTER. you have maple syrup, don't use olive oil, that's madness. if you're vegan, go with coconut oil instead. sautee your mushrooms and sprinkle good pepper over them until they're starting to sweat. sprinkle a bit of basil over the mushrooms. now invite the cranberries to join the party, maple syrup and all. smell that! you made that! now add your pecan halves, stir it, keep stirring. spoon in some quinoa, keep stirring till its tossed. serve immediately. have sea salt on the table.

THIS WAS THE STAR OF THE SHOW, FOLKS. It is complex, contrasty, textured, interesting, but not dense. mushrooms sauteed in butter with basil is familiar. the Quinoa sucks up the maple, has its own chewy-ness, the je ne sans quoi of a new to me grain. the pecan is a distinct treat. but the tart intensity of the fresh cranberry attacking maple's sweetness raises eyebrows and makes expressions come alive. put a little extra on your plate if you have foraging competition - this dish is disappearing. I don't know if it would have been half so good with squash, to be honest.

and best of all, defiler_wyrm - NO ONIONS.

5. Brussels Sprouts are okay.

but while my roasted sprouts dish was miles ahead of over boiled soggy sprouts, and I played with that sweetness and tartness, i think that the taste of cabbage just isn't my thing, and I have no regrets.

6. I know how to put a spice rub on a prime rib, bygod.

but oven roasting a steak was a stunt and I wound up with a very tasty well done version, but my heart belongs to medium rare. I might try it again but pull it out the moment the outsides are browned and let it rest on the counter while I finish up.

Chels;

The next time you're in Sunterra Market, looking at that bag of Quinoa?

It's three bucks. Buy it, already.

I had gotten some fresh carrots.

And so I scrubbed them and cut them into fairly thin discs, so I could make carrot soup from them.

one last purple onion, diced a bit coarse and sauteed in butter. I added some herbs - thyme and basil, a bit of oregano, a bit of Lake Shore Drive seasoning for The Spice House, and a bit of their dried lemon peel, then a teaspoon of minced ginger. it got fragrant. I was thinking of adding some curry powder but I think this is fine, actually. but I did add some milled Grains of Paradise (you can use a good pepper instead.)

i had some leftovers - a bit of spaghetti squash that I had steam baked, with pepper, salt, lemon, and butter, and the last bits of a very nice red pepper, so I diced that and added it.

I decided on chicken broth this time - I poured in enough to fill in the gaps on everything. I'll let it boil for only about five minutes, and then I'll let it simmer until the carrots are tender. then it will be time to whizz it down with my stick blender. will i add cream? well maybe, but then again maybe not. the mushroom soup was pretty incredible.

I don't have any white wine, so I didn't add any. I think I will buy a bottle for my soupmaking efforts. I *do* have an orange, if I wanted to juice it and add it to the broth, but I think the lemon peel is going to bring that citrus freshness.

Soup is a really wonderful thing to make with fresh ingredients. I'm still working with shortcut stock, since I haven't bought a big old roasting chicken and it's hard to find a bone on a roast these days, but sooner or later I will find a butcher and that will be that.

I think every two weeks with a 25 dollar fresh produce box (and then another ten bucks in extras, who am I kidding) is just about perfect for me. I'mreally enjoying the fruit and vegetables, and my potato free selection, hurrah!

It's only just started gently boiling and it already smells wonderful. the dried lemon smells so bright - it's really the best dried lemon I have ever had.

ETA: I probably could have used a bit more ginger. the lemon is nice, supporting the carrots, the herbs are subtle, with the occiasional bite from a bigger bit of a grain of paradise. I milled a bit of black hawaiian salt over top, and that's good, but it makes me wonder about the lime salt i didn't buy from the market.

surprisingly, I'm making soup.

Today is american thanksgiving. For me it's the day before Spud.ca delivers my first order from them. I still have some produce from the grocery store in the fridge, so i'm going to be looking for some fresh ideas to use up all these vegetables I'm going to have.

Today isn't really that day.

I grabbed a one cup bag of previously canned crushed tomatoes out of the freezer, along with a couple of bags of frozen vegetable broth. if I didn't have vegetable broth, I could have used chicken broth and that would have been fine. I thawed them out in the fridge overnight and then poured them into my slow cooker.

I also took a little purple onion and diced it, putting half of what was left in a bag for the fridge, and a red bell pepper and diced that, though I saved a few sticks to munch on instead of saving them for something else. into the pot with them, along with a teaspoonful of already minced garlic from a jar. spicing was simple. a little chili powder, and then I milled up grains of paradise. I could have used whole grains too, but I just grabbed the mill. If you don't have grains of paradise, which is a fairly obscure spice, then you could substitute pepper. I also added just a pinch of ground cardamom, hoping for a subtle undertone. for herbs, I used savory.

finally I added two tablespoons of uncooked brown rice (I'm sure white rice would be fine.)

right now, it's cooking in my slow cooker on high, and it's starting to smell really wonderful. The onions are not yet translucent, and the rice is not yet cooked through.

But when it is, I will add in a generous amount of organic peanut butter, stir to blend, and let it simmer for another hour, I think. since my organic peanut butter is sugar free i added a teaspoonful of brown sugar to my soup, to sweeten it just a little bit.

from what I can taste, chicken would go well in this. could be a nice way to use a little bit of leftover cooked chicken.

ETA: IT'S AMAZING. OH MY GOD.

too bad. I want to talk to you about pork tenderloin.

so what you do is, you get a whole pork tenderloin. the price is pretty good on them, actually. a like weight in boneless, skinless chicken breast would be more expensive (but if you can't/don't eat pork, that or turkey breast would be your best substitute.)

take a sharp, narrow bladed knife and shave off the silverskin. you'll take some meat with it. no worries. then slice the tenderloin to a litte over 1cm thick, or half an inch if you prefer. sprinkle with black pepper and a little bit of garlic powder, and leave on the board. you could sprinkle it with apple cider vinegar, if you had some (I do, but I didn't for this one.)

grab a bowl, and shake some dijon mustard into it. I just used about two teaspoon encouraged glops. then I shook in a generous dash of worchestershire, but I could have used apple cider vinegar here too, but I didn't. then I dumped a whole lotta pepper, about 2/3 of a teaspoon of crushed garlic (i'm lazy, but I will press garlic when inspired) a shake or so of basil, a pinch of thyme, and stirred it into the dijon mustard (any kind of mustard will do. dijon is what i have.)

then I glopped on as much pure maple syrup as I figured I'd normally put on one belgian waffle (if it were a buckwheat beligian waffle) and stirred that up and tasted it. decided that it wasn't quite balanced enough, so added a little more. tasted that, and put in a smidge more mustard. I wondered if horseradish would work on pork, but decided not to risk it.

if I'd had my shit in a heap I would have already been preheating my favorite skillet on just shy of medium heat. but you have the benefit of my error, so put the pan on before you're slicing the tenderloin into medallions. heat it dry.

tenderloin is very lean, so I used some olive oil in the bottom of the skillet. I took it off the heat, addes the oil, swirled it around, and laid the pork out in it and put it back on the heat.

after one minute and ten seconds, I turned them over.

after one minute and twenty seconds, I took them out of the skillet, drained the oil off the pan, and put the empty pan on the heat.

I added the mustard and maple sauce to the skillet. I let it cover the bottom, cook a bit, and then put the pork in it to cook for another four minutes.

While it cooked for four minutes, I kind of wished that I had a nice pear, just a little on the unripe side. if I had, I would have washed it, sliced it into 1 cm wedges, dusted them with black pepper, and put them in for a half-minute after i'd browned the medallions and before adding the sauce, to cook just a teeny bit before adding the pork. that would have been nice. I realized that this could have worked beautifully over some leftover saffron rice, if I had any, but I didn't, so that was all right.

once the sauce reduced a bit I slipped the whole thing on a plate, and as I looked down I wished for something green and sharp to go with it. maybe asparagus, or green beans, but those both seemed too soft-flavoured.

I took a bite and figured it out. Collard greens. I wanted collard greens with it, or fiddleheads, steamed fiddleheads. or that weird alien tree thing that looked like a straggly broccoli I had in that seafood restaurant once. but something with all that leafy dark green vegetable edge of vitamin a. it probably wouldn't be too bad over a mixed greens salad, with the mustard maple sauce as a sort of salad dressing...but that's a bit too...i dunno. not really chelsea food, you know?

and mushrooms. something meaty and full of flavour, that would be a nice add. but I love mushrooms, so it could be my bias. brown mushrooms at the wimpiest, I'd say.

and beer. hoppy, cold, so damn cold with a hard sparkle. a pilsner, I think (not Pil, you great unwashed.) or a white beer, even. beer would be better with this than wine. oh Keith's! alexander keiths would work. now I wish I could have beer. wine? white, but dry white. I don't know those so well. maybe one of the light spanish wines that i keep tasting and meaning to try, but certainly nothing so imposing as a cabernet from italy. I'll save that for the cook for hours stew.

Once I got off my ass and did it, I'm not sure cooking the pork tenderloin, from taking it out of the fridge to putting it in my belly took more than 15 minutes.

Someone should keep me and give me a generous grocery budget and tell me to plan the thursday night dinner parties.

people cuss me out becuase I don't cook from recipes, don't measure, and don't write things down. i sorry. but let me talk to you about grilled lime shrimp, anyway.

so safeway keeps doing these buy one get one free on their bags of frozen shrimp or prawns. and I keep buying them. well, I've done this recipe twice, the second time to try it with more lime to see how I like it better.

anyway, take a bag of frozen, peeled tail-on raw prawns. I like the really damned big ones, but a bage with 31-40 will do you fine. put them in a colander and run cold water over them to thaw. if you can only find the shell on ones, buy them, but peel them after they're thawed, I'd say.

in a sealable bowl or a ziplock baggie, dump in a bunch of black pepper, a bit less than that of garlic powder, and a touch of a hot chili powder or cayenne pepper. crush a clove or two of garlic. roll a whole lime around on the table, nice and firmly, then slice it and squeeze the juice and scrape some of the lime pulp into the bowl. get frustrated and top it off with prepared lime juice, like realime. then stir that up and add a little sugar syrup - the proportion is half sugar sugar syrup to one quantity of lime juice, however much you use.

now smell it. is it intoxicating in its lime pepper garlic and a touch of chili simplicity? stir it up, taste it. does it have the proper bite, balanced by sweetness? if no, then add more of what it's lacking. look, i'm really sorry I dont' measure stuff, I realize I suck. but this is good. trust me.

when your peppery garlic lime is about right, add your thawed shrimp to the mix, seal, shake so all peices get coated, and stick it in the fridge. this is a fast marinade - I had my shrimp in its bath of goodness for about an hour before cooking them.

fire up your grill for direct heat cooking, at medium-high heat. thread your shrimp onto bamboo skewers that have been soaking in water. wire crush your grill, quickly paint the grille in a little oil to hel with sticking, and put your shrimp skewers on. close the lid. count to 40. open the lid. turn the shrimp over. count to 40. open the lid. pile all your skewers of beautifully pinky-orange shrip without a trace of grey anywhere all together in a big pile, and pour marinade liquid over them before taking them off the grill and setting them in front of your friends, who will burn their fingers in their haste to eat the nummy nummy crustaceans.

to make sugar syrup, you need an equal measure of white sugar and water. so, one cup sugar, one cup water, like that. you need a saucepan that has been rinsed out with water. dump in the sugar, then the water, then set on medium high heat. stir to dissolve sugar, then let the mixture boil for about five minutes. take off the heat, and let cool.

you can use sugar syrup for this recipe, of course, even if you decide to make it with a few bruised stems of mint leaves (mint would be a lovely addition to this shrimp) then you can keep the sugar syrup to sweeten real brewed iced tea to taste, or iced coffee, or freshly squeezed grapefruit juice, or home made lemonade, or you can use it to make mint juleps, or mojitos (me, a boozehound? no way.) any leftover sugar syrup can go in the fridge and keep for a few days.

Happy Birthday, quietspaces!

NaNoSlashMo:

44,540 / 25,000 (178.2%)

Words added to: Time Comes Stealing On. Yes, I *know*. I'm a shameless fic starter. but this one is nearly almost finished. It's funny how these things morph away from me - I was trying to write the ultra-smut, and I ended up with some truly hilarious moments and some mushy stuff instead. I'll try to redeem my Queen of Smut! reputation by the finish.

I've also decided that Harry/Draco is my OTP. (hangs head)

ETA: Finished! and I updated the wordmeter to reflect that. once again, if HPSlash is your thing and you want to read it, just let me know and I'll send.

page by page rewrite-o-meter:

7 / 30 (23.3%)

In the traditions of all rewrites, this puppy is swelling. I'm a page ahead in my revision version than I am in the original.

( Oh and I said I was going to talk about stew. )

...So on Saturday night, we hauled a package of uncooked tiger shrimp out of the freezer, and resolved to cook it up.  We ended up with the most fantastic...
( Okay, this is how it got done. )